In the beginning of the episode there was a lot of talk on whether or not Joan Rivers would come back to the show as last week it appeared that she had left for good as a result of her daughter getting fired. As it turns out though, she did come back saying that her team shouldn’t have to suffer over personal reasons.
The task was to create a music jingle for the company Chicken of the Sea and its tuna products. Not only that, but they had to create a 30 second radio commercial for it. The executives would choose which one they liked best to determine the winner. The project manager for KOTU was Clint Black and for Athena it was Annie Duke.
The show was consistently being shown to demonstrate how Clint Black had the upper edge since he is a musician while showing segments of Annie Duke and Brande Roderick struggling. For the thirty second commercial, KOTU went with a more comedic approach while Athena was a bit more informational. As it would turn out, team Athena did pull out a pretty good music jingle and as expected KOTU had a very good one.
It was really different in direction though as KOTU’s was more old fashion and slow paced while Athena’s was more zingy, I guess you can say. I would say technically KOTU’s definitely sounded a lot better. Message wise it seemed like Athena did better. In the end, Athena was chosen as the winner and Annie Duke seemed to be milking it on how she beat Clint Black as she has no background in music.
There wasn’t too much of a fuss in the boardroom as the end product for KOTU was great and it just came down to a direction decision. As a result, this was one of those coming down to the project manager scenario and as a result Clint Black was fired.
Shortly after, the remaining four were told that were going to be interviewed by Piers Morgan as another two people were going to be fired that day. I should note that this wasn’t too much of a surprise as during the first commercial they blurted out that three people were going to be fired.
Long story short, it seemed like Piers Morgan felt Joan Rivers and Annie Duke were the best candidates for finalists. He implied that it would be a disgrace if Brande Roderick made it into the finals and he questioned Jesse James since we haven’t really seen anything from him funding wise. He kept getting nailed too for being married to Sandra Bullock and not using her star power to help raise money.
In the actual boardroom deliberation it was pretty predicable about the outcome. Donald Trump mentioned that he didn’t think Brande Roderick had what it took to go on further and so she was the first one fired. Next was Jesse James as he couldn’t figure him out and considering he raised no money. Again, the topic on how he was married to Sandra Bullock came up and Trump threw kind of an interesting comment at that.
He felt that even if Jesse James was placed into the finals he probably still wouldn’t even try to use his wife for help. That just made me think how Donald Trump should have just said “I want stars and ratings for my finale†as that is what it seemed like he was going for. Ultimately, Jesse James was fired. On an interesting note, all this made me interested in learning a bit more about Jesse James and apparently he was married to a porn star before marrying Sandra Bullock. So there’s definitely more to his personality than what we see on TV I guess as oppose to the calm persona I’d say.
So the final showdown is between Joan Rivers and Annie Duke. With all the hints that Trump gave and the specific comment he made to Annie Duke about how the finale might not even be about fundraising, I would say it is probably going to be about creating a spectacle of some sort. Typical in real life I’d say Annie Duke would probably have the edge over Joan Rivers based on what we have seen.
Hollywood wise the ending seems appropriate for Joan Rivers to win though. While she may not seem as strong, this situation reminds how having a common “enemy†is usually a great way to gather up support. I wouldn’t be surprised if old people such as Melissa Rivers comes back and works extra hard just to spite Annie Duke. One more episode to go.